Literally hundreds of ships each year now made the voyage from Spain and Portugal to the coasts of this New World of America, gradually exploring – and exploiting – every island, every mile of beach, every inlet. The Guerra brothers, wealthy shipowners of Triana, made a profitable voyage to the pearl coast of Paria, and so did old Juan de la Cosa. Peralonso Nino returned to the New World several times, and so did many of Columbus’ former shipmates. A Portuguese-turned-Spaniard, Juan Diaz de Solis, sailed from Spain with three vessels for the South American continent. They rounded Punta del Este in today’s Uruguay, and entered the great bay of the Rio de la Plata, where now stands Buenos Aires. No sooner had they gone ashore, however, than they were attacked by natives who killed most of the white men, including Solis. In memory of this event, the Spaniards long thereafter called that great river Rio de Solis.
Voyages like these soon made it abundantly clear that this New World had nothing at all to do with Asia; that, in fact, Asia could not extend that far eastward, just as the Spanish and Portuguese cartographers had always insisted before 1492. But if this was a new continent, it was, as Columbus himself had already concluded, a barrier in the way to the real India, and somewhere through this barrier there must be a passage to the Indies of the East.
No one, of course, could as yet have suspected that once they crossed this continental barrier of America – a most formidable barrier in itself – there still lay the immense expanse of the Pacific Ocean, more than twice the distance of the Atlantic route from Spain to Hispaniola. Not until a Portuguese mariner set out to finish what Columbus had begun did the real enormity of the Admiral’s miscalculations become clear. And when Ferdinand Magellan’s ship and a handful of survivors returned to Spain after circumnavigating the globe, it had been proven beyond all doubts that Columbus had indeed discovered an entirely New World.
Ferdinand Magellan was born in Sabrossa, Portugal, around 1480 and was christened Fernao Magalhaes. His parents apparently died while he was still very young, and he was brought up as a page in the royal household in Lisbon. In 1505 he enlisted as a volunteer in the fleet which Francisco Almeida, the first Portuguese Viceroy of India, was taking east. Magellan spent seven years in the Indian service – seven years of sailing across unknown waters, of wild fights with Arabs and Malays, of establishing trading posts along the shores of the Indian Ocean. It was during these years that the young sailor received his training that was to come to good use on his historic voyage.
Ferdinand Magellan returned to Portugal in 1512, but a friend, Francisco de Serrano, had established himself on the Moluccas; his frequent letters stirred in Magellan the dream of returning to that new world in the Indian Ocean. But Magellan was also convinced that the Moluccas could be reached far easier by following Columbus’ original idea rather than by the long and difficult voyage around Africa. All that remained to be done was to find a passage through what was already becoming known as the Spanish West Indies.
Magellan’s plan was first submitted to the king of Portugal, but Emmanuel, like his father in 1492, paid little attention to the idea. The papal decrees already prohibited Spain from sailing to the Indies by way of the African coast, and since no one had yet found a strait through that new land of theirs, there was no danger of their coming by the western route. So why not leave well enough alone? For the second time in twenty years, a Portuguese king refused to support a potentially profitable and historic enterprise. Magellan then asked for permission to offer his services “to some other master,” and he was told he might do as he wished.
In February, 1518, Magellan appeared before Charles I, the 17-year old son of Philip of Austria, grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, who had two years earlier become King of Castile, Leon, and Aragon. Magellan brought with him a neatly painted globe to explain his plan; the places where hoped to be able to sail through the American continent had been left unmarked, but Magellan declared himself ready to sail around the southernmost tip of the continent, if necessary. The plan appealed to young Charles I, especially since on Magellan’s globe the rich spice islands where shown to lie on the Spanish side of the world. After little hesitation, Charles signed a royal patent for the expedition, stipulating only that they not explore within the territory of his “dear and well-beloved uncle and brother, the King of Portugal” – though, in fact, that was the primary purpose of the entire enterprise.
There were many obstacles to overcome before Magellan was able to set sail. The King of Portugal, apparently realizing his mistake, tried everything to prevent the expedition from getting off the ground, even suggesting that out of “Christian neighborliness” this troublesome Magellan should be done away with. And, like Columbus before him, Magellan had the handicap of being a foreigner; worse yet, a Portuguese, the most unpopular of all foreigners. He eventually had to send all over Spain to obtain enough sailors for his five ships, and the final list of crews showed Spaniards, Portuguese, Genoese, Sicilians, French, Germans, Flemish, one English sailor, and several Africans.
From Barcelona, meanwhile, Charles I had issued detailed instructions for the voyage. 74 paragraphs, itemizing routine matters from gambling to cursing aboard the ships to the treatment of the natives, all were prescribed for the expedition. Someone close to the young king had apparently tried to anticipate everything that might happen on this voyage; no one, however, could have imagined all the terrible things that were going to occur.